Eff You, Commercials.

When we got our cable installed in our apartment, way back in the summer of 2006, our cable installer told me (since Joe was back in KY, working a lengthy theater gig) that it would cost us $75 per DVR, if we wanted to have them installed in our apartment. With two working tv’s that would've been $150 in one lump sum that I would have to shell out to upgrade. Joe and I both loved having DVRs before, but at the time it was more than we wanted to spend. Besides, we were both getting used to Comcast On Demand, which stockpiles movies and tv shows, having them ready for viewing at all times. The CBS page automatically stockpiled Survivor for me and the NBC page was good about giving Joe his CSI. So, we were content without the DVRs that we both knew that we loved and wanted.

That is, until the new season of 24 started. Joe LOVES that show. I’ve never seen him so obsessed about something. He knew that he was going to have to work on the first Monday and Tuesday of the new season, so he had to work out something to tape those shows for him. He texted me every twenty minutes on Sunday to see if I'd hooked up the VCR and ran some tests to make sure that it would work.

In order to fulfill Joe’s Jack Bauer jones, I rigged up my old VCR. (Which I haven’t watched a movie on, since college.) As it turned out, I’d long ago thrown out the small pile of blank VCR tapes. In order to tape 4 hours of 24, we had to cannibalize two of Joe’s wrastlin tapes. Wrestlemania XX and some other wrastlin show. We managed to tape both shows, but they had that tinny, washed out color of VCR recordings on a used tape. Even recorded at the SP mode, there was definitely something muted about the presentation of the show. Just goes to show you how spoiled I am for digital recording and DVDs.

But with the crisis averted for those two days, there was still the matter of the rest of the show's season. Because the timing system on the VCR is unfathomable, someone has to be at the apartment to press “RECORD” every time you want to tape something. Which sort of defeats the purpose of the whole system. At Joe’s urgent pleading, I called Comcast to see if we couldn’t just get a single DVR system installed on our front tv. Joe and I freed up the extra $75 and called them.

Guess what? The $75 was the cost to have the installer come and hook the darned thing up for me. If I wanted them to mail it to me or go pick it up myself, I would pay nothing. (Except the $12 a month, per unit, DVR fee.) I had the customer service rep reserve two DVRs for me and made plans to go pick them up last night.

Yesterday was a long day. I had to get up early and disconnect the cable boxes for the two tvs and take them to work with me, in my backpack. I rode the blue line out to Jefferson Park to pick up the DVRs, so that was a 45 minute trip. The actual exchange went pretty easily, with the clerk passing new equipment and receiving old equipment through a strange, airlock system.

One interesting note about Comcasts DVR program, they recycle DVR devices. When you return your DVR, after you close your account, your machine is wiped free of show data and is given away, sans packaging, to the next person who agrees to go pick it up. Of the two machines that I got, one of them had a noticeable brown ring on top of it, where it presumably burned something that covered its vents, causing it to overload and heat up real quick. Nonetheless, I took it home and hooked it up to the front TV. Burn mark and all.

Another interesting note, the DVR that I hooked up to my computer hadn’t been wiped. It still contained a TON of TV shows on it that the previous owner had left on there. My inner voyeur enjoyed picking through the hours of TV left on that machine, getting a taste for what appealed to the previous owner. What shows did he like? And I say, “Him”, because the shows were decidedly masculine. On my DVR, I found the entire first season of “Heroes”, nearly a dozen episodes of “Criss Angel:Mindfreaker!” and many, many episodes of Monday Night Football. Also, two or three of those Spike TV, caught on tape shows. (“Look! This family picnic is being attacked by a bear! Observe! This funny dog is sliding on ice! Whoops! Somebody fell to their death!”) I deleted everything but the “Heroes”. I take this as a sign that I probably should give that show a second chance.

I also added my own recordings to the lineup. I now tape an episode of The Waltons every morning. And the new “Daily Show” each evening. Tonight, I’m adding “Mythbusters” to the schedule. Also, “Lost” when it returns and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”, every Sunday evening.

One of the most exciting aspects of the addition of the DVRs to our home viewing options is the restored ability to skip commercials entirely. I FUCKING HATE COMMERCIALS. Only in TV is this sort of intrusive commercialization allowed. You don’t find interruptions on every other page of a novel, advertising some new feminine hygiene product. And movies don’t stop every twenty minutes to point out the benefits of this soda over that soda. Is it a coincidence that HBO doesn’t have commercials and they’re able to produce some of the smartest, sharpest dramas in our times? I don’t think so.

The ability to now fast forward those insipid commercials (and let’s face it, commercials are written by retards FOR retards, because it’s hard to communicate a complex idea in 80 seconds) is a God-send. With a little deft fast-forwarding from me, I may never have to watch a commercial, ever again.

And that alone is worth $12 a month to me.

So, yeah, that was my day yesterday. Locating DVRs, getting them home, hooking them up and programming them into the night. That’s why I didn’t get to sleep until 2 AM. And that’s why I’m exhausted today!

Say, take a look at that! It’s 5pm. Time to head home and see what those wacky, but wholesome Walton’s are up to!

Cheers,
Mr.B